SPRINGFIELD — Illinois is poised to provide greater access to reproductive health care and abortion procedures than any other state in the country.

Proponents and opponents agree passage of the Reproductive Health Act, which would repeal and replace current abortion law, is a near certainty. It would fulfill a promise by Gov. J.B. Pritzker to turn the Prairie State into “the most progressive state in the nation for access to reproductive health care.”

There seems little doubt Democrats, who hold a supermajority in both chambers of the 101st General Assembly, will have a legislative victory in the matter.

“Right now, this bill is passing,” said Peter Breen, vice president and senior counsel for the Thomas More Society, a conservative, pro-life law firm that plans to challenge the law in court.

Illinois’ current abortion statute was passed into law in 1975 to “reasonably regulate” abortion after the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.

Since then, though, courts have struck down several aspects of the abortion law, such as a ban on fetal experimentation, a prohibition on sex-selective abortion procedures and a provision allowing the husband of a woman seeking the procedure to receive a court order barring her from doing so.

Illinois’ chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union also has pointed out that the state’s current law includes a provision, which the ACLU has repeatedly battled in court, allowing doctors to be jailed for performing abortions.

According to a memo prepared by the Thomas More Society, the Reproductive Health Act goes much further than bringing the state’s law up to date.

“A bill intended to repeal only unconstitutional provisions of Illinois law would have been half a page long, not 120 pages,” the memo’s author wrote.

The Society is challenging in court a measure former Gov. Bruce Rauner signed two years ago that allows Medicaid and state employee health insurance programs to cover abortions. 

Critics say groups that oppose abortion for religious, moral or other reasons but purchase or provide insurance would be forced to provide coverage for the procedure. Legal protections for health care workers and providers who refuse to take part in or perform abortions also would be weakened, they say.

The Reproductive Health Act is filed as twin pieces of legislation in both chambers of the General Assembly, House Bill 2495 and Senate Bill 1942. 

“This is modernization; this is cleanup; this is not breaking much, if any, new ground,” said co-sponsor Rep. Kelly Cassidy, D-Chicago. “We are making clear what the state of our law is — once and for all, we are making clear that health care decisions are made between a medical professional and a woman.”

The Reproductive Health Act would prohibit the state from intruding in a woman’s reproductive health care decision-making and would create an avenue for a woman to bring a lawsuit should she feel this right was violated.

Among other statutes, the measure would repeal criminal penalties for health care professionals who perform abortions, the partial-birth abortion ban, parental notification requirements for minors seeking abortions, the Abortion Performance Refusal Act and part of the Ambulatory Surgical Treatment Center Act. It would prohibit local governments from weakening access to such procedures as abortion.

“At the end of the day, this is treating abortion care as health care, which it is, and removing it from the criminal code,” said Julie Lynn, manager of External Affairs for Planned Parenthood of Illinois.